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During the morning hearing in Manhattan, Sen. Michael Gianaris was one a few state lawmakers to insinuate that Con Edison’s drive to profits could be at odds with its ability to provide reliable electricity.

After Con Edison President Timothy Cawley opened the hearing with a defense of the company's performance this summer and its overall reliability, Gianaris asked the executive about the “virtues” of an investor-owned utility, compared to a publicly owned system.

“Certainly, you folks can look at that,” Cawley responded. “I would say that we are heavily regulated and in many cases private-owned enterprises focus on efficiency and ensuring the job gets done well and in a way that pleases the customers.”

The idea of a pubilcly-run power grid was most recently tossed out by Mayor Bill de Blasio. The mayor questioned whether the city might be better served by a government-run utility after a weekend heatwave in July left a swath of the West Side of Manhattan dark and required Con Edison to flip the switch on several parts of Brooklyn to avoid a larger blackout.

"Con Ed is a private company that is heavily regulated but they are still a private company and they’re not accountable to the public in the way a public agency would be," de Blasio said at a July 22 press conference.

While not committing to any legislation, Gianaris picked up de Blasio's line of thinking.

“Con Edison is among the most expensive utilities for customers in the nation,” the Queens representative said. “I wonder if that is related to the fact that you are a private entity, you are making profits, paying dividends and at the same time you are a monopoly. I question whether we have turned the economic incentives upside down.”

Cawley reiterated that the power failure in July was caused by flawed relay equipment, which has since been addressed. For the Brooklyn outages, Cawley said the company’s pre-emptive decision to remove some residents from power prevented further outages in the borough. Those who Con Ed removed from power would have lost power either way based on surging demand, he said.

“The events in southeast Brooklyn and the West Side Manhattan happened because, despite our strategic, targeted investment, no system is 100% reliable,” Cawley said. “These outages did not occur because of neglected infrastructure or a lack of maintenance or investment.”

Con Ed has invested more than $1 billion yearly in improving its system, he added, and delivers power to its Westchester County and city territories eight-times more reliably than national averages.

Queens Assemblyman Ron Kim said he believes the company may be putting forth its best effort, but “we have to accept the hard truth that all of our hands are tied as long as Con Edison is structured in a for-profit way where you have a fiduciary duty to your investors, shareholder and board members.”

Sen. Brad Hoylman, who represents part of the West Side that lost power, called the outages a “national embarrassment” that cost Con Edison the confidence of public officials. He asked why Con Edison did not join a recent pledge from companies —including JP Morgan, BlackRock and Bank of New York Mellon—to abandon the long-held corporate view that shareholders’ interests should come first.

Cawley said serving customers is Con Edison’s “true north” and Con Edison CEO John McAvoy will review the commitment.

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